Jack Templar and the Lord of the Vampires (18 page)

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.

Stone gargoyles behind us. Bronze statue assassins in front of us. I was starting to think this wasn’t the best idea.

“Forward,” Daniel shouted. “At least there are fewer of them.”

I agreed but also realized he still had his sword. I was running toward a fight with nothing more than my bare hands.

The bronze statues let out a battle cry and charged down at us. Daniel and I yelled back. Daniel raised his sword over his head. I slid my right hand into my sleeve so the climbing hook faced out, bracing for impact.

We swung hard at the bronze statues, then flailed for balance. They twisted and ducked, moving with the grace of gymnasts. One jumped high into the air, executed a somersault over me, and then landed on his feet behind me without missing a step. One second they were charging at us, the next both apostles and the eagle had passed us and were charging toward the gargoyles.

With a huge crash of metal on stone, they smashed into each other in an eruption of screams and snarls. Daniel and I grabbed onto the spire and stopped, too stunned to do anything else except stare.

The four bronze statues smashed through the gargoyles, the men brandishing their metal spikes wildly, the creatures biting and clawing, all breaking off limbs and heads wherever they made contact. Even the eagle was tearing through stone with its metal talons and razor-sharp beak.

The Creach never slowed. They swarmed our protectors, clawing at them. A few tried to outflank them and swerve around this new defense to get to us, but it didn’t work.

With ornate spins and flying leaps, the apostles and eagle put themselves in front of these sneaky ones and made quick work of them.

I thought for a second that the bronze statues might be invincible, but then I saw one of the apostles fighting three large gargoyles at a time. He turned with his metal spike raised in both hands to drive it home into the body of one of the stone creatures when a fourth gargoyle leapt through the air. It fell on the apostle, its mouth wrapped entirely around the bronze statue’s head. With a violent twist, the gargoyle wrenched hard, shaking the statue back and forth like a dog shaking a toy. Even from where we stood, the sound of twisting metal filled the air. The gargoyle fell backward, taking the statue’s head with it.

Impossibly, the statue turned and chased the gargoyle, spike still cutting the air. But it was blind and the other gargoyles quickly swarmed it, forcing it down.

“Come on,” I shouted to Daniel, shaking myself into action. “Time to climb.”

He nodded, and we scrambled up the bronze statues’ now empty pedestals, then mounted the octagonal base of the spire where it attached to the roofs. The ornate stone and metalwork design gave us plenty of handholds. We shinnied up the surface, the adrenaline from so many near-death experiences in the last fifteen minutes pushing us to a manic pace.

The base had two main levels that looked like open balconies. The first was easy enough to get to. It had eight stone arches with enough room for us to maneuver. Right above it, though, separating it from the next level, was a line of gargoyle rainspouts.

Unlike the other Creach, these were still attached to the cathedral. Still, they twisted and spat like snakes. They were small, but I wasn’t about to let one of those stone jaws clamp down on me. I spotted a stone decorative spike and borrowed an idea from the bronze apostles. I gave it a stiff sidekick and broke it off at the base. It was heavy but functional. It felt good to have a sword in my hands again, even if it was made of stone.  

We climbed on the arches and made our way to the next level. The line of gargoyle waterspouts turned and snapped at us. I swung my spike and shattered the first with one blow. The others were harder to get as they dodged out of my way, but I was able to bust them after a few more tries. With the path clear, we made it to the second balcony.

Slightly smaller than the first, it also had eight arches, but these were narrow and pointed. We climbed up and reached the top of the base where the real spire started. From this vantage point, I saw the roof to the front of the cathedral. I saw the bronze statues from the other three corners were engaged in the same battle against the gargoyles. There were hundreds of the stone creatures now. Without the help of the apostle statues, we would’ve been dead for sure.

Lightning flashed, giving us a good look at the climb ahead. The spire rose above us, looking like it went straight up into the center of the storm. It made me think of my battle with the Aquamorph on the boat ride to the Academy. In order to defeat that Creach, I’d climbed up a flexible antenna into a storm. At the end of that fight, I’d jumped from it and fell into the safety of the ocean. I looked down at the cathedral below us. A fall here would be lethal.

The radio crackled. I’d almost forgotten it was there. T-Rex’s voice came in fits and starts, like we were right on the boundaries of the radio’s range.

“…don’t speak French…looking at the cathedral…,” T-Rex said. I heard another voice only barely. Someone speaking in French. Maybe the police? Then Will started to shout in the background and T-Rex’s voice changed. There were sounds of a scuffle. “Hey, let go…Jack, watch out…it’s the…coming for you...” And then nothing but static.

I reached up to press the button to speak but Daniel nudged me. “We should stay quiet,” he said. “Whoever it is, we don’t need to let them know we’re up here.”

“But they could be in trouble,” I protested.

“Probably just security wondering why they’re loitering outside Notre Dame in the middle of a storm,” Daniel shouted. The wind shifted directions and made a high-pitched whistling noise as it blew through the balcony below us. “Nothing we can do from here anyway. Best thing is finish the job and then go find them.”

I knew he was right, but it still didn’t sit well with me. The panic in T-Rex’s voice
didn’t sound like the security guards had found them. But Daniel was right, no matter what it was, we had to finish what we came here to do.

Short, stubby spikes designed as decoration covered the spire. They served perfectly for climbing. Without a scabbard to hold my stone sword, I left it behind so I could have both hands free. Daniel and I each chose a side and started the climb up.

The wind screamed past us, seeming to get worse the higher we went. Rain continued to pelt us. Below, the battle between the priests and the gargoyles raged on. I kept my eyes straight ahead of me, trying to block out everything in the world except the next handhold and the next foothold.

Soon enough, my hand reached up and found only a smooth surface. The spikes ended and, right above us, there was a round metal basket that looked like the crow’s nest on a ship. The problem was that we were underneath it and there was no easy way to get into it. And by easy, I mean no way that didn’t seem so incredibly dangerous that it bordered on the insane.

The spire was so narrow here that Daniel and I, holding on for dear life on either side, could lean over and speak to each other.

“We need to get past this,” I yelled. “Then it’s a straight shot.”

Daniel handed me the end of a rope with a clip at the end. “Here,” he shouted back. “Just in case.”

I opened the clip and snapped it onto my harness. Daniel fed me more line as I used the hooks on my elbows and wrists to crawl up the last few feet to reach the underside of the crow’s nest overhead. Support bars curved up around the solid basket’s outer surface. I reached for the bar nearest me and pulled myself up, allowing my feet to come entirely off the spire. I dangled in midair and worked my way hand over hand along the bar. The wind pushed me around mercilessly. The iron bar was slippery, and each time I reached for a new handhold I slipped a little before re-anchoring myself.

The bar curved upward, following the outside of the crow’s nest. Soon, I was heaving myself straight up which at least allowed me to get my body back against the surface. I was almost to the top when I heard the sound of wrenching metal. The bar I was climbing had come loose and was bending backward.

It was slow at first, just a barely discernible sensation that I was pulling away from the surface. Then it fell back sharply a whole foot before the bar caught again. It didn’t stop, just slowed into a more deliberate, creaking bend.

I reached out for the surface of the crow’s nest, but it was too far away and getting farther away by the second. With no time to think, I jumped from the bending bar, flew through the air and reached out for the basket’s rim.

I hit hard, bounced off the metal edge, and fell.

At the last second, the hook on my wrist caught on a decorative curl of metal. I hung on the edge, my feet kicking in the air, looking down at the three hundred foot drop beneath me. I forced my body around and found a second handhold. With a cry, I pulled myself up and over the rim of the crow’s nest, panting from the exertion.

“Are you all right?” Daniel’s voice crackled over the radio. The storm was wreaking havoc on the transmission.

“Yeah,” I panted. “Keep feeding me line. I’m going up.”

I saw the bronze rooster right above me about fifteen feet up. This last section was a wrought iron pole the thickness of a baseball bat. Halfway up it twisted into the shape of a cross and then extended another five feet to the rooster. None of this was unexpected since Xavier’s pictures from the Internet had shown me this area with detail. I just wasn’t prepared for it to be on fire.

A weird green flame danced along the bars and covered the rooster. The pelting rain had no effect on it, and it made no sound.

I reached out and touched the bar and the flame jumped to my hand and raced down my arm. I pulled my hand back, and the flame still danced along my body. But it didn’t burn me because there was no heat.

I’d read about this phenomenon in books before, usually about ships at sea that had their masts glow green in the middle of storms. Long the stuff of superstition and legend from old sailors, it turned out to have a more simple explanation—an electrical discharge from the storm. But it still kept its awesome name, St. Elmo’s Fire.

I knew the good statues below couldn’t hold back the gargoyles forever, so I threw myself at the metal pole and climbed. As soon as I did, St. Elmo’s Fire covered me completely.

I couldn’t imagine how I would look if anyone on the ground saw me, a glowing figure clinging to a metal pole in the middle of a lightning storm, six hundred feet up in the air on top of the most famous cathedral in the world.

All this to reach a metal rooster because of a hunch that something important was inside. Not for the first time that day, I considered the possibility that I was crazy.

I made short work of the pole and climbed onto the cross. Balancing on the horizontal arms and using the center pole to steady myself, I stood up and reached the rooster.

It was larger than it appeared in the photos, round and thick like a huge watermelon. Whereas every other surface I’d seen on my climb was pockmarked with signs of weathering and covered with bird droppings, the rooster was in perfect condition.

Its surface gleamed from the green fire licking around its edges without actually touching it. I felt a surge of hope. It was possible the rooster was made of some kind of metal alloy that kept it in such pristine condition and kept the fire from it, but I wanted to believe these things were because of the powerful talisman hidden inside of it. More than wanting to believe, I needed to believe. I wouldn’t have to wait too long to find out.

First, I needed to figure out how to get inside it. There was no way I could bring the whole thing with me. Even hollow, it would be way too heavy. I ran my hands over the surface. It felt smooth and unbroken.

I fought down a little surge of panic as I considered the contents might have been welded shut inside before being placed on the spire. I was just formulating a plan to throw the rooster off the building and find it below afterward when I felt a bump on the far side. I swung around so I was looking at the rooster from the opposite direction and let out a cry of relief. Embedded in that side was a small door with three latches on it.

As I reached for the latches, the storm kicked up in intensity. Lightning lit up the sky and thunder boomed right after, so loud the world shook from the force of it. I fought down the sense that the thunder was meant as a warning for me and flipped open the first latch.

The wind howled, whipping me from different directions. Screaming at me.

I undid the second latch.

The rain beat against me, doubling in its intensity, as if a cloud had burst open.

I unlocked the third and final lock…and pulled open the door.

Something screamed. A piercing sound so loud it hurt my ears. It felt like it went on forever, but in reality it was only ten seconds or so. It wasn’t a scream of terror or pain but of anguish. Finally, it faded into a mournful whimper and then disappeared.